filling screw holes?

the po of my '79 seemed to like gadgets like cup holders, pvc rod holders, etc. i do not. that leaves me with about 20 screw holes in my boat, a few filled by po haphazardly (i.e. protruding shamelessly) with some hard white crap. i shaved down the hard white crap or just chiseled it out where need be to provide a recess for the real repair. question is, i don't know what to use for the fill. do you just epoxy and wet sand, then gelcoat and wet sand, compound, and wax? i don't understand the process as far as what the gelcoat actually consists of or does, and how it blends with the rest of the gelcoat. i'm pretty picky, and don't want to fly blind, so if anybody has a good screw hole filling method (insert guffaw here), i'd like to hear it. yes, i read the other gelcoat posts, but couldn't really garner a concrete process from start to finish. thanks.

[macojoe]

Marine Tex! Works great and is hard as stone when dry. Will last a lift time.

[stripminer]

West systems has a great video they put out just for your needs. They show the mixture, application and finish of a repair from start to finish. It really helped me when I did some touch up on my 88 lift.

- Tom

thanks for the help so far, i already had a new tube of marine tex that i was going to use for misc dings in the hull, i guess i'll use it inside too. emailed minicraft about a match for my gelcoat color, never got back to me. will those generic kits be able to match somewhat seamlessly, or should i badger minicraft a bit more? i'm guessing compounding or wetsanding the epoxy into the rest of the hull won't provide a lookproof repair, so i'm kinda looking for a gelcoat (admittedly a bit faded) match at this point. preciate da help.

[bigshrimpin]

sloppy,
Here's a few tricks that helped me out when I had to fill some screw holes.

1. does the area that you are repairing have stress cracks in the gelcoat that spider out from the srew holes.

if yes = then you'll need to dig out the cracks too with a sharp edge (can opener), sand, acetone and fill with gelcoat otherwise they'll just show up again.

2. I used a drill with a beveled grinding bit to prep my holes. It actually makes the holes bigger but the extra surface area from the bevel gives the gelcoat a larger area to bond.

3. use masking tape to tape off the area around the repair . . . . . this allows you to minimize the clean up and focus your efforts only on the repair area.

4. When you apply gelcoat make sure to be extra generous, b/c your going to need sand the repaired area flush with existing surface.

5. Some gelcoats require PVA wax in order to fully cure otherwise they'll stay tacky . . .

6. if you use gelcoat and epoxy together make sure that the epoxy is sanded and acetoned before you apply gelcoat.